"Yah, she caught one in a door when she was a kitten.  I didn't name her.  She was my Mom's cat."  Jin clenched his teeth.  He didn't need to have added that last.  "She's just a Felis domesticus."

Gyre-the-Falcon gave one ear-splitting shriek from his perch, and the black-and-white rats rustled in their cages.  Jin called greetings to them all.  When food was not immediately forthcoming, they all settled back in a disgruntled way.  "Do you like rats?" Jin eagerly asked his guest.  "I'll let you hold Jinni, if you want.  She's the friendliest."

"Maybe later," said the man faintly, seemed to take in Jin's disappointed look, and after a squinting glance at the shelf of cages, added, "I like rats fine.  I'm just afraid I'd drop her.  I'm still a bit shaky.  I was lost in the Cryocombs for rather a long time, today."  After another moment, he offered, "I used to know a spacer who kept hamsters."

This was encouraging; Jin brightened.  "Oh, your water!"

"Yes, please," said the man.  "This is a chair, right?"  He was gripping the back of Jin's late stepstool, leaning on it.  The scratched, round table beside it, discarded from some cafe and the prize of an alley scavenge, had been a bit wobbly, but Custodian Tenbury had showed Jin how to fix it with a few shims and tacks.

"Yah, sit!  I'm sorry there's only one, but usually I'm the only person who comes up here.  You get it 'cause you're the guest."  As the man dropped into the old plastic cafeteria chair, Jin rummaged on his shelves for his liter water bottle, uncapped it, and handed it over.  "I'm sorry I don't have a cup.  You don't mind drinking where my mouth was?"

"Not at all," said the man, raised the bottle, and gulped thirstily.  He stopped suddenly when it was about three-fourths empty to ask, "Wait, is this all your water?"

"No, no.  There's a tap on the outsides of each of these old heat exchanger towers.  One's broken, but the custodian hooked up the other for me when I moved all my pets up here.  He helped me rig my tent, too.  The secretaries wouldn't let me keep my animals inside anymore, because the smell and noise bothered some folks.  I like it better up here anyway.  Drink all you want.  I can just fill it up again."

The little man drained the bottle and, taking Jin at his word, handed it back.  "More, please?"

Jin dashed out to the tap and refilled the bottle, taking a moment to rinse and top up the chickens' water pan at the same time.  His guest drank another half liter without stopping, then rested, his eyes sagging shut.